THE VOTE: AN UPDATE, AN APOLOGY

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on March 30th, 2010 @ 11:11:24 am , using 490 words
Category: Commentary

  When you are wrong, you are wrong. I was wrong. Previously I wrote:  Has the Republican Party become as uniform in its composition as the “tea party” mob: white and mostly male? I should have known better. I should have remembered the old saw that be… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

CLEANING UP THE NEIGHBORHOOD FOR DEMOCRACY

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on March 26th, 2010 @ 09:38:58 am , using 769 words
Category: Commentary

So, I’m watching a moment of TV the other night and a dead serious “reporter”, his voice leaning forward as if borne by the winds of an historic development, is laying out the advice offered up by some crackpot to his followers. The “reporter” has worked… more »
1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Pre-Existing GOP Conditions

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 25th, 2010 @ 10:40:28 am , using 180 words
Category: Commentary

Matt Miller in WaPo has a suggestion for Republicans: You don't like the protections in the new health care reform, don't use them or let any family members use them either. Just say no to every benefit the new bill offers. Sounds like a winner. No need… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Threats of Violence over Health Reform

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 24th, 2010 @ 07:39:22 pm , using 426 words
Category: Repetitions

Boehner last week: Driehaus (D-OH) could be a "dead man"by Dante AtkinsWed Mar 24, 2010 at 04:10:04 PM PDT With several different Democrats receiving threats of violence and receiving protective detail after voting for the new health insurance re… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

The Democrats Can Win

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 24th, 2010 @ 10:06:47 am , using 583 words
Category: Commentary

Maureen Dowd lays it down here in her morning after piece in the NY Times. The fear-mongering and racial epithets won the Republicans a whole lot of nada. Let us cheer on this win and move other agendas forward and make this a living will to change Ameri… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

THE VOTE

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on March 23rd, 2010 @ 03:24:24 pm , using 748 words
Category: Commentary

Like many my family and I watched on Sunday as the House of Representatives moved inexorably to the moment when votes would be cast and tallied. It was an afternoon and evening of theatre. Outside deep emotion raged with all the sincerity and clumsiness… more »
1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

FEAR STRIKING OUT

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 22nd, 2010 @ 09:03:03 am , using 713 words
Category: Commentary

Paul Krugman in today's NY Times lets fly the fear-mongering that made this health reform debate one of the ugliest in recent history. Not a single Republican vote, and yet the vote was what made it happen. The vote. Congratulations to Obama and Pelosi a… more »
1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

On Health Insurance, Again

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 21st, 2010 @ 09:03:39 am , using 557 words
Category: Commentary

Article from Kristof in Sunday 3-21-10 NY Times Editorial. I don't think these things are made up. Beyond sad or intolerable, a serious menace to the human condition     Opponents of the reform proposals argue: If you like the Department of Motor… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Spring Equinox and various threads

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 20th, 2010 @ 12:51:24 pm , using 194 words
Category: Commentary

Well, hee we go on health reform votes. About time, one says, and the whole brew is almost intolerable to listen to. I do like the idea that previously hard-fought legislation like Civil Rights (Voting Act) and Medicare were opposed with the idea that th… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Kucinich's Vote on Health Care Reform

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 18th, 2010 @ 10:11:18 am , using 334 words
Category: Commentary

Well, how about that for a St. Patrick's lucky charm!   Kucinich's preamble continued at great length before he finally got to the telltale line: "I know I have to make a decision, not on the bill as I would like to see it, but as it is." He reache… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Access

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 18th, 2010 @ 09:57:19 am , using 680 words
Category: Commentary

Nick Kristof in today's NY Times (3-18-10) takes a look at this question of access to health care and does and eye-opening job of getting the record straight. As this thing comes down to the wire again, the voices of no seem to be scaring the folk to dea… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

THE UNREALIZED TRAGIC OF OUR TIMES

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 15th, 2010 @ 10:01:55 am , using 555 words
Category: Commentary

Ross Douthat in NY Times 3-15-10 looks at this Hollywood penchant for the simplistic untragic in its depiction of political fictions. I have to say I watched The Hurt Locker the other night and could not find a narrative in it worth evaluating. It lacked… more »
1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Rove/Cheney and Crazyland

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 14th, 2010 @ 10:22:54 am , using 744 words
Category: Commentary

Frank Rich goes into the latest disinformation campaigns of propogandists Karl Rove and Liz Cheney who have decided to sell crazy when the country is already full up, to quote a comedy that made more sense than this garbage run. We know the kind of lies… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

The Prospects After Rain

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on March 12th, 2010 @ 10:25:33 am , using 148 words
Category: Poetry

The sky Exhausted now Settles back on blue High count Egyptian cotton sheets And pillowed on Wet earth Falls blank With sleep.   And we have time To tidy all the clutter up Before the quickening Below comes By the truckload Busting up It… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Health Care Facts

Posted by: Steve Belasco
Published on March 12th, 2010 @ 09:54:05 am , using 1281 words
Category: Commentary

In college I took a debate course. I think they called it Argumentation and Inquiry. Argumentation? Yep. I agree: argument is a perfectly good word. It doesn’t need a tuxedo. But that’s what it was: Argumentation and Inquiry. I think they could have just… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Ram Away, O ye Mighty Ones

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 9th, 2010 @ 11:49:44 am , using 628 words
Category: Commentary

Cohen in WaPo suggests that Obama should ram away with the plan, despite all the noise about a socialist plot to damn the poor citizens to a blundering bureaucracy with nothing going for it but losses for all. It is not perfect by any means, but it is a… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Rove's Brainless Book

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 8th, 2010 @ 10:58:34 am , using 88 words
Category: Repetitions

His new book, "Courage and Consequence," promises to "pull back the curtain on my journey to the White House and my years there." What he divulges nearly made me choke on a pretzel. That business about President George W. Bush misleading the nation abo… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

The Democrats' Choice Finally

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 4th, 2010 @ 09:15:31 am , using 641 words
Category: Commentary

The health reform bill can actually be accomplished with a little political will on the part of the skittish Democrats in Congress. Our RRR position has long been that this is a necessity long overdue and that with a little shove the whole show can come… more »
Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Remembering Robert Altman

Posted by: Bill Pearlman
Published on March 3rd, 2010 @ 10:05:47 am , using 337 words
Category: Commentary

Watched again some Altman, Prairie Home Companion & The Player, amazed at the spontaneous comic and serious themes, death with the Keillor homage, and the viciousness of Hollywood in The Player. Been reading an oral bio (Mitchell Zuckoff, Knopf) of R… more »
1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink